“Shit,” I groaned, reaching hand over hand so I could move to the trunk and climb down.
The sound the elk made scared the hell out of me. It was more like a scream than anything else, and when it charged at the tree, I yelled. There was no way the vibration wasn’t going to knock me down; it was like an earthquake. I couldn’t hold on any longer and dropped, falling fast, slamming into the elk, of all things, and then bouncing forward. For a second, I saw the antlers up close.
And then there was only darkness.
Three
A scent called to me—salty sea air blown in from the ocean during a storm, mingled with something spicy, almost earthy, incense and smoldering wood from a fire, with traces of the musky dampness of wet rock.
I inhaled deeply, and my eyes fluttered open to a view of a cave illuminated by a small fire casting dancing shadows on the walls.
Turning my head, I found a man sitting close, and I knew, instantly, I was dreaming.
“Great,” I grumbled under my breath, sighing deeply. “I’m freezing to death somewhere out in the snow, and my mind has conjured up my dream man.”
It wasn’t fair. No one I’d met in real life ever looked like this. If the broad shoulders and wide chest weren’t enough, the carved lines of the rest of him were overkill. I had to give it to myself, it was impressive conjuring.
Struggling to sit up, reeling because my head felt like it was going to split apart from the pain between my eyes, I would have fallen back on the pile of furs I was lying on if he hadn’t moved. But he was there, leaning close, arm around my shoulders, bracing me, making sure I wouldn’t pitch forward into the flames.
As soon as we were skin to skin, I realized that the scent, the incense part, the amber and oud, was him. His hair was long, falling to his defined, chiseled pectorals, and it brushed my cheek when he turned his head to look into my face. It was silky and thick, with scents stored in the strands, spruce and saffron and musk. I leaned forward, wanting to tangle my fingers in the length, but instead the hair swirled through them and away like the receding tide.
My gaze lifted from my hand to meet his, and the light from the fire made his midnight blue eyes glow a deep honey for a moment as his dark, dusky lips curled into a smile.
“You must be from a magazine I’ve read or a book cover I’ve seen,” I told the gorgeous man with the square jaw hidden beneath a short beard. It was coarse under my palm when I boldly cupped his face in my hand. I was dreaming, what did it matter? Men this pretty didn’t look at me in real life, and this one was holding me like I was special. “I must’ve dredged you up from down deep. Maybe from a Scottish laird romance or something. I used to read a lot of those.”
Reaching down beside him, he passed me a carved wooden cup, smooth with age, blackened, it appeared to me, from being used countless times over an open flame. The smell of the liquid was familiar, and I winced, knowing what I was in for.
He smiled slightly, eyebrows lifting, and when I groaned, I got a deep, sexy chuckle before I drank some of the willow bark tea that my grandmother used to swear by over Tylenol. And in that moment, I realized something important.
There was no way in the world I was dreaming.
“Holy shit,” I breathed out, looking from the cup to him as things clicked like a series of gears in my head. I wasn’t stupid, no matter what everyone on L’Ange—except Quade—thought. I was chosen as one of his guards after all. I could make these intuitive leaps. “You’re what’s been lurking in the woods.”
He squinted at me as though the words were alien, and I glanced around the cave, looking for signs of his successful hunts, bones in his lair, ruined pelts, whatever would confirm my suspicions. There was nothing but what looked like a walking stick, an enormous pack, and what we were sitting on, the black furs of what had to have been several large bears.
It all made sense. The creature the animals weren’t used to was a human hunting them. Of course they were running all the time; they had no clue what he was doing skulking in the woods and preying on them.
Turning to see his face, I caught him inhaling deeply, breathing in through his mouth, and I smiled before I glanced at the entrance to the cave and realized it was pitch dark beyond the light from the fire.
“Shit,” I groaned loudly, knowing I was dead, because Quade was going to either have Kelvin murder me or he’d do it himself. “How long’ve I been out here?” I asked, turning back to look at my dream man.
He simply stared at me with those beautiful eyes of his, dark like a winter night, and the slight curl of his lips let me know that he found me amusing.
Checking my face for damage, I was surprised to find none. Worst-case scenario, I should have been dead from having my skull caved in when I smashed face-first into the antlers of the elk. Best case, I should have fractured all the bones in my face, the damage slowly healing. As neither seemed to be the case, I had to wonder what happened.
Meeting his gaze, I smiled at him, and he—ignoring all rules of etiquette, just as I had when I’d touched his face—leaned in close, reached out, and gently pulled aside the collar of my jacket. When he pressed his face into the hollow between my neck and shoulder, I shivered with the contact.
His satisfied male grunt told me he was pleased with my reaction to him, and when I felt his warm breath on my skin and his hand slipping around my throat, tipping my head toward him, the strangled keening sound I made came from down deep in my chest.
I was made to be held down, taken, and the way he touched me, like he owned me, and even more, like he wanted me, had me trembling with pent-up need.
He chuckled, low and seductive, before his hand slid around the back of my neck, holding me still as he bent and took my mouth.
I melted into the kiss, opening for him as his tongue met mine, tangling, rubbing, and when I lifted my arms but hesitated, uncertain if I should touch him or if he only wanted to touch me, he took hold of my elbow and guided me to where I wanted to be, with both arms coiled around his neck.
He clutched me tight, easing me back and then down, his hard-muscled body settling over mine, and when I parted my legs so he could lie between them, he took hold of my thigh, pulling it over his hip, wanting me even closer.
Breaking the kiss, I stared up into his face. “You should come home with me.”
He murmured something in reply that sounded like eel-scan, which made no sense, even as he tugged on the collar of my parka.
“You want this off, huh?” I teased him, reaching up to unzip it.
Instantly, he pushed up the sweater underneath, revealing my flat, smooth stomach, completely devoid of the washboard abs that covered his carved torso.
“I’m not nearly as beautiful as you are,” I told him, and noticed how his lashes fluttered as he inhaled deeply once more. “But I must smell like something you like.”
He was riveted, I had every drop of his attention, and as he held my gaze I realized no one had ever maintained such steady eye contact with me. He was searching for something, unsure and awestruck at the same time. It was overwhelming, and I glanced away, unable to bear it, touching one of the two braids in his hair, running my fingers over the silver beads there.
A word then, something with an M, and I lifted my eyes to his.
He jolted suddenly, his eyes widening as his breath caught.